I'm gonna go ahead and say it. I love love love to dance and more specifically I love to grind. In my high school my senior year we were warned by our officials that our promiscuous dancing would result in some unwanted consequences. They threatened to take our prom away as well as other smaller dances we had throughout the year if our dancing didn't clean up a bit. These officials and parents of our school formed a concept in their minds of what grinding was- a skanky, slutty practice that only led to more skanky, slutty madness. But let's take a moment to examine this. We live in the 21st century. Classical music has been replaced by mad dance beats and awesome hip hop songs. Saloons and book clubs have been replaced by dance clubs and frat parties. We love to dance, heck we need to dance. Schools stressful and is it not okay for me to just let lose and grind and have some fun one night??? I mean really-it's something that I myself, like to do. It's my choice...or is it? I always thought that I loved to grind becasue I just love to grind. Nothing to it. But now lets apply some cultural studies to that, shall we? Lets say that my body likes to grind. Not me, myself. Maybe it's docile body-ness at it's best. The norms of our generation is that at parties and clubs, girls will find a guy or a guy will find a girl and grinding shall take place. It's the norm of our culture in this generation. Our body is a memory. And it's so true-when I hear the beat and I feel the beat in my bones and I start to sway it's like a chain of events. I'm "led" to grind. Call it what you will-skanky, slutty, purely disgusting. I call it fun, and up until now I thought it was something I did because it's so darn fun. But it could very well be, that my body has been culturally imprinted with the grinding bug and now it's part of me. You know, just until the next big thing erases it and replaces it with the next big cultural norm!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
I'm culturally programmed to want to grind on you.
I'm gonna go ahead and say it. I love love love to dance and more specifically I love to grind. In my high school my senior year we were warned by our officials that our promiscuous dancing would result in some unwanted consequences. They threatened to take our prom away as well as other smaller dances we had throughout the year if our dancing didn't clean up a bit. These officials and parents of our school formed a concept in their minds of what grinding was- a skanky, slutty practice that only led to more skanky, slutty madness. But let's take a moment to examine this. We live in the 21st century. Classical music has been replaced by mad dance beats and awesome hip hop songs. Saloons and book clubs have been replaced by dance clubs and frat parties. We love to dance, heck we need to dance. Schools stressful and is it not okay for me to just let lose and grind and have some fun one night??? I mean really-it's something that I myself, like to do. It's my choice...or is it? I always thought that I loved to grind becasue I just love to grind. Nothing to it. But now lets apply some cultural studies to that, shall we? Lets say that my body likes to grind. Not me, myself. Maybe it's docile body-ness at it's best. The norms of our generation is that at parties and clubs, girls will find a guy or a guy will find a girl and grinding shall take place. It's the norm of our culture in this generation. Our body is a memory. And it's so true-when I hear the beat and I feel the beat in my bones and I start to sway it's like a chain of events. I'm "led" to grind. Call it what you will-skanky, slutty, purely disgusting. I call it fun, and up until now I thought it was something I did because it's so darn fun. But it could very well be, that my body has been culturally imprinted with the grinding bug and now it's part of me. You know, just until the next big thing erases it and replaces it with the next big cultural norm!
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I know a lot of people like you who love to dance. And I happen to be one of them. I'm a trained dancer so it was always harder for me loosen up and dance how they do at clubs and parties. However, I now enjoy dancing like that. I believe it is definitely a culture thing because pretty much everyone is grinding. Sure, it doesn't look the greatest from an outside perspective but it will still be happening for a long time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying. I remember back in high school, all the high school staffs informed all the students to dance properly and without grinding. But like you said, now is now. We don't slow dance, bob our heads, or boogey to today's music. Today's culture includes all that but in grinding I suppose. Good topic. I like it. I know there are other people out there that probably does not like grinding and does not practice it. That's fine and probably even better.
ReplyDeleteI love just being able to let loose and dougie! I share your love of dance.
ReplyDeleteBut society doesn't. That's societies job though. Think about the generations before us. We're supposed to press against the norms in order to enjoy ourselves. Then when we have kids, we will want to control them as well. We want them to act and behave like we used to. But they will be themselves. Kids will be Kids.